


water night

by lovingness



Series: night brings its wetness to beaches in your soul [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Artist Kageyama Tobio, Forest/Lake/??? Spirit Kunimi Akira, Kissing, M/M, Strawberries, a flooded bathroom, a lot of it HA, i really do not know what to say about this fic to be honest, kunimi falls in love with kageyama's boring cooking, please read it that's it, some mention of Kageyama's grandfather and great-great-grandfather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24854869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovingness/pseuds/lovingness
Summary: It’s as if there was someone just beside him, Kunimi thinks, around whom he was wrapped comfortably. He leans over to the reflection of himself in the lake surface and catches his own eyes, then, notes how the water ripples around them. With what, he does not know.Anyone watching would say they are his own tears.(Kunimi’s dream goes like this.)
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Kunimi Akira
Series: night brings its wetness to beaches in your soul [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1835881
Comments: 15
Kudos: 51





	water night

**Author's Note:**

> > "And if you close your eyes,  
> a river, a silent and beautiful current,  
> fills you from within,  
> flows forward, darkens you,  
> night brings its wetness to beaches  
> in your soul."
> 
>   
> Octavio Paz, trans. Muriel Rukeyser.  
> 

The lake owner meditates. On all sides, surrounded by water, Akira Kunimi meditates. Somewhere within him, there is a breath in, out, in, out. Methodical and careful and lake-filled, Kunimi breathes. The lake is him, he is in the lake, and he is in himself and content.

He does not wonder, for there is nothing to wonder about. Whom or what would he wonder over in his lake, undisturbed and peaceful and silent? He does not think he has seen another person in maybe thousands of years. Spirits like himself, yes, but none capable of communication. He’s closer to a god than a spirit, maybe; he can speak and he looks “human,” whatever that means to anyone. But no one close to him has he seen in a long, long while; there was someone, once, and he does not know where they are now, but he would not be surprised if it was in a grave.

Stories say that leaving the forest drives one mad with unremembrance. An inability to remember everything one has seen and experienced.

Kunimi stirs, then, and opens his eyes to his empty lake. Sighs. Swims to the barrier between his world and the next and pokes an arm through, flinches at the slight chill, and wonders what month it is. _May_ , his mind supplies, _May._ Kunimi thinks the last person he saw was here in May, although it could’ve been any month. 

It was a long time ago, and the only thing Kunimi knows he remembers right is the person’s voice. It was a man’s voice, medium-deep and a little angry. Because he thought he was just lost ( _lost_ , Kunimi laughs to himself) and Kunimi had told him there was nowhere to go besides the way he came and the man replied that he could not find the way he came. So, Kunimi, feeling a little bad, led the man out and left him afterward. It could’ve been nice to keep him around, Kunimi thinks, but non-spirits and non-gods are invariably annoying after a few years. A fine toy for a while and then they get frustrated, agitated at not being able to do what Kunimi does. Kunimi leads them out and pushes them from his mind when he can. It’s simple.

And, other times, he thinks of the man and sighs. Kunimi doesn’t know what the word is that comes to his mind but he does not think it’s loneliness. Maybe it’s melancholy, or nostalgia. Like the man could’ve been the one, _his_ one, but he knows soulmates only come around once in dreams and not for very long. Perhaps a day.

The idea that there could’ve been someone to understand him hurts sometimes, though he knows that there never will be anyone like that.

Kunimi swims fully out from under the surface of himself, then, lays on the grassy shore of the lake, and sleeps.

It’s sometime later, a whole twenty-four hours when Kunimi wakes. Soreness in his body, which has twisted itself into a veritable knot in his sleep, Kunimi sits up and sighs in his silence. It’s as if there was someone just beside him, he thinks, around whom he was wrapped comfortably. He leans over to the reflection of himself in the lake surface and catches his own eyes, then, notes how the water ripples around them. With what, he does not know.

Anyone watching would say they are his own tears.

(Kunimi’s dream goes like this.)

He is human, he thinks, in this life. Maybe he proves it to himself by seeing how long he can hold his breath (giveaway number one: he has to breathe) before he has to splutter from the lake floor he woke up on to the surface, gasping the whole way up, eyes teary and wet.

Laying on this lake’s shore, not the lake of himself, Kunimi makes upside-down eye contact with a man. He looks kind of like Kunimi, maybe, except he’s not as skinny and has a funny three-way part in his bangs. Kunimi’s goes two ways.

“Are you okay?” the man, concerned, asks. Kunimi has to think very hard to discern his emotions, then wonders why he is trying to do so. Oh, well.

“Yes. I’m fine, just a little tired.”

The man is unconvinced but calm. “Sure. You did swim to the bottom of the lake at eleven o’clock at night..”

Kunimi looks away. He can tell the man does, too, but all he does is cast a glance at the still-rippling surface of the lake and then look back down at Kunimi. 

“Do you need a hand?”

Kunimi nods. The man kneels and places a hand lightly on Kunimi’s shoulder, helping him to sit up and cough out some of the lake water clogged in his nose and throat. He rubs a soothing circle on Kunimi’s back, and Kunimi wonders if the man has done this before. For someone else, maybe, and it doesn’t make Kunimi jealous to think about it. Not at all.

“Thank you,” Kunimi says, quiet.

The man, instead of standing and leaving, sits beside Kunimi. “My house is that direction,” he starts, gesturing vaguely in the opposite direction of some trees, “if you need to rest or call someone. I live alone.”

Kunimi knows better than to turn the man down. He knows the consequences of denying where his dreams want him to go; it will only mean an endless cycle of almost-drowning before the man forces Kunimi to come with him whether he likes it or not. Kunimi does not want that for him or the man.

“Sure.”

The man nods curtly before he stands, offering an open palm to Kunimi. 

Kunimi shudders at the touch of skin against skin.

They walk together across the field towards the house, then, Kunimi noticing it’s nighttime. Wonders what the man was thinking, watching a stranger crawl out of a lake not a mile from his home barely breathing and coughing up water. Kunimi wants to apologize for the display but doesn’t know how to, so he doesn’t. He watches the moon and the way it reflects light on the grass that they are basically swimming through on the way to the house.

He wonders what the moon is thinking, watching the two of them wander in her sea.

(The moon, in her infinite kindness, will not apologize for what she is about to witness.)

Eventually, though, they reach the house. The man pushes a door open next to the garage and Kunimi leads the way in, eyeing the stairs and remembering how to use his legs on stairs before he walks up to them, the man behind him probably confused. Kunimi does not remember the word for this. (It’s embarrassment.)

The emotion Kunimi cannot identify eludes him until he reaches the top of the steps, a closed door he almost forgets how to open, and with his botched door-opening skills Kunimi remembers the word.

“Embarrassment,” he says aloud, too loud because the man pauses his own walking. Kunimi wants to die, then, but the man laughs.

“Well,” he starts, stepping around Kunimi into the house’s main level, “I’d be embarrassed, too, if I was so out of it I forgot how to use steps and a door.” He takes his shoes off.

Kunimi’s face burns. _Embarrassment_.

The man continues. “There’s a bathroom down the hallway to your left if you need it. I’m gonna, uh, probably make some stir fry, I think.” Kunimi thinks the man smiles. “Take your time.”

And, with that, the man walks down another hallway and leaves Kunimi alone. Well, alone with himself and his embarrassment. This might be the first identifiable emotion Kunimi has felt in a long time. He looks down the left hallway, then, sees a slightly open door and guesses that that is the bathroom. Kunimi carefully steps into the house, toes his shoes off, and pads sock-footed down the hallway whose walls are covered in portraits.

One of them is a painting, Kunimi notices. It’s of a lake, and a naked man sitting cross-legged on the shore. The man has dark hair parted down the middle.

Kunimi continues walking.

Bathrooms, apparently, are another thing Kunimi has yet forgotten the purpose of.

He shuts the door behind him, he knows that, and then he realizes he does not even need to use the bathroom at all. He should’ve told the man this, of course, and the man would’ve been understanding because the man is kind of quiet but unreasonably nice. Here Kunimi is, though, in his bathroom and unbearably confused. 

Kunimi starts by turning the water on in the sink. Then, the bath. He flushes the toilet.

(He repeats these actions three times each.)

He turns the sink tap off once it gets scarily close to spilling onto the countertop, fascinated by the little lake he has created. At this moment, Kunimi does not care if he is a human in this dream because this is his lake now. This is his lakeshore, and his lake, and his home. He drags his pointer finger across the surface of the water and then breaks the tension with it, submerges his finger, and then his whole hand in the sink. He would fit his forearm, or his whole body, actually, if he could.

Kunimi fails to realize that the barely-spilling water was not designed to accommodate his hand and only jumps back from the sink when the water pools around his feet on the floor. The feeling from before pops back into his mind: _embarrassment_. 

Embarrassment as he grabs for the towel hanging on the back of the door. Embarrassment as he sops up the water that he can and then wonders where to hide the soaked towel. Embarrassment as he hangs it back up, the water running down the door - the wooden door, he realizes. Water ruins wood and there is nothing he can do about it. The water is in the wood now. Nothing to do about it.

From behind Kunimi, the bath overflows.

The man walks in on Kunimi, sitting cross-legged and blank-faced on the flooded bathroom floor.

“I’m sorry.”

“For the hundredth time, I’m not mad,” the man says from the bathroom with what is clearly restrained anger. Kunimi stands in the hallway with the strange painting while the man scoops the flooded water into buckets, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, and his pants pulled above his knees. His socks are wet, though. Kunimi wonders if he forgot to take them off.

It’s a minuter later before the man sits back on his haunches and sighs, buckets filled to the brim around him. He stands and stalks into the hallway past Kunimi and back towards wherever he came from. Kunimi wishes he could do something about the water, but in this dream, he has nothing with which to help.

So, he follows the man quietly, down the strange painting’s hallway and past the garage stairs and into another hallway where he is led to the man’s kitchen. There’s a smell of cooking vegetables and rice that hits Kunimi when he steps through the kitchen’s doorframe, and he doesn’t think he’s smelled food this good in a long while. He’s surprised it didn’t burn with how long the man spent in the bathroom and how long Kunimi stood silently in the stupid hallway.

The man jostles the pan on the stove, sizzling noises rising for a moment before dying down again, and Kunimi sits in his wet clothes at the dining room table in the corner. He does not know how to ask for new pants because, frankly, he is not used to wearing pants, but the horrible squelching of the wet fabric against the wooden chair gives his plight away. 

The man spares a glance in Kunimi’s direction, attention back on the food in a second. “I have some sweatpants in my room, in the bottom drawer of the dresser. And some old shirts, if you want one.” The man turns the burner off on the stove and sets the pan down. Then, he turns toward Kunimi and sighs. “I’d better come with you, though.”

Kunimi nods silently, standing and following the man back the way they came. Only this time they trek past the poor bathroom and to the door at the end of the hallway. It opens with a squeak, and the man flicks the light on without ushering Kunimi in before him. Kunimi watches the man cross his room and then kneel down to rustle through a dresser on the other side of his bed; he takes the chance to step just slightly into the room and glance at it. He notices the wallpaper, then, a myriad of overlapping ocean waves. They look like they were hand-painted, Kunimi thinks, and the bedspread, too, is a deep blue. The desk has multiple eggshell white, porcelain pen cups on it. Some filled with paintbrushes, or small shells. There’s a collection of plants hanging over the sill of the window above the bed. 

The man stands, his knees cracking, and he walks back to Kunimi with a sweatshirt, shirt, and sweatpants for him. His face looks worn, and Kunimi is sorry.

“You can change in here. Just throw your wet clothes in the basket, I needed to do laundry anyway.” He does not mention that no sane person would do laundry with a basket that empty, but Kunimi appreciates his try at making him feel better.

Quickly, once the door is shut, Kunimi changes into the offered clothing. There’s a pair of boxers, too, and only after a moment’s deliberation does Kunimi put them on with everything else. He lays his soiled clothing in the basket and then takes a good look around the bedroom. His suspicions are proven once he sees a stack of canvases leaned against the side of the dresser the man was blocking.

This man is an artist. 

Kunimi, once again, eyes the paintbrushes, and what he realizes now is the hand-painted wallpaper. Each ocean wave painted by that man’s hands, carefully and considerately. Kunimi has never wanted to see someone’s hands so badly, but he simply flicks the light off and walks back to the kitchen.

Dinner is on the dining room table when Kunimi makes his way there, the man already seated and starting in on it. Kunimi takes a seat, mumbles a quiet “thank you” to the bowl in front of him, and then picks up a bite of rice and vegetables and places it gingerly in his mouth.

It is, to put it lightly, the best thing Kunimi has ever tasted. He thinks he could cry, or scream, or dance until he falls over, but all he does is shovel it bite after bite into his eager mouth and hope the man does not notice.

He does. “Slow down, or you’ll puke. Shit.”

Kunimi pauses with three bites in his mouth. He swallows. “Sorry-”

“Stop saying sorry,” the man quips, but he looks sadly at Kunimi then. “You’ve had a long night, just… just take your time. Okay?”

Kunimi nods slowly, taking only one bite into his mouth. He chews it carefully, savoring the taste and spices spilling over his tongue. There’s a sudden flash of something too hot on his palette and he chokes, grabbing for the glass of water that has gone untouched for ten minutes.

The man laughs. “Sorry, it might be a little hot.” He pushes his chair out from the table and stands, swiftly approaching the fridge. “I can get you a glass of milk.”

Kunimi gasps, water dripping down his chin. “Thank you,” he whispers hoarsely. The man brings the glass of milk to the table and sets it in front of Kunimi before he sits down again, the milk already a quarter of the way gone by the time his chair is scooted back into the table.

The man sighs. “You’re strange, you know that?”

Kunimi, mouth full of milk, stares at him silently.

“Not in a bad way, I guess,” the man says apologetically. “But of all the randos who wander across my property, not a one of them has almost drowned, forgotten how to use doors and stairs, flooded my bathroom, and then scarfed down my piss-poor excuse for cooking.” He leans back in his chair. “Pardon me for being confused.”

Kunimi shrugs. “I’m not from around here.”

“You barely seem human,” the man says frankly. “And, you never told me your name.”

“You didn’t tell me yours.”

“I wasn’t going to tell my name to someone who was acting drunk.”

“Then why did you let me in?”

The man makes a confused face. “Why did I?”

Kunimi nods.

He sits up again. “You remind me of someone my grandfather once told me about.” He points towards the hallway that leads to the garage stairs. “That other hallway, with the bathroom. There’s a painting in it of a lake spirit my grandfather told me his grandfather met. So, my great-great-grandfather supposedly met this spirit and once he came out of the forest he painted the guy, or lady, or whoever it was.” The man relaxes again, leaning back in his chair. He puts his water glass to his lips before he takes it away, laughing. “It was probably a random lost guy off his rocker, but who knows.”

Kunimi thinks his heart is going to jump out of his chest.

The man sighs. “But, anyway, my grandfather told me that this lake spirit or whatever was really weird. And kind of mean, too, but he totally didn’t get things like clothing or stoves or cooking or anything. Mind you, my great-great-grandfather wrote all of this down and painted that before he died of a ‘heart attack’. We all know he went insane, though, because he kept saying that he couldn’t remember all of what happened. I guess it drove him mad.”

Kunimi is, in fact, going to die.

“So, that’s it. You’re weird and you remind me of this random thing that might’ve driven my great-great-grandfather to his death.” The man finally, finally takes a drink of his water. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. We don’t even know each other’s names and I’m telling you about my family’s history. Funny.”

“Funny,” Kunimi agrees, his voice tight. 

The man yawns, looking at the clock. “I didn’t realize how late it was.” 

Kunimi looks with him. Two A.M.

“Well,” the man says, standing with a groan, “I’m going to bed. There’s some blankets and a pillow on the couch.” He smiles slightly, then, looking at Kunimi. “Just take the other small hallway off of where the stairs come up from the garage.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, stranger.” The man picks up his and Kunimi’s dishes and puts them in the sink, running some water over them before he leaves. Kunimi waits to hear the bedroom door shut, the squeak of the handle barely loud enough to be heard, and then he stands and exits the kitchen.

Before Kunimi takes the hallway to the living room, he goes into the bathroom hallway and stares at the painting again. He sees the middle part of the painted man’s hair, the man’s muscled but thin frame, and the small inlet of grass on the lakeshore not unlike the shore of his own lake. He simultaneously wants to tear the painting into thousands of tiny pieces and cry his eyes out. He does neither of these things.

Kunimi wanders slowly into the living room, then, and does see the couch made for him. There’s a plain white pillow on the upholstered surface, and one quilt tucked into the couch’s cushions on top of which lie two other blankets for Kunimi to cover himself in. Kunimi pulls the edge of the blankets away from the pillow and sits on the quilt, staring at the room around him.

There’s a large, framed portrait of some nameless ocean above the fireplace’s mantel across from Kunimi. A small box (television?) in the corner is turned off and looks as if it has not been turned on in a long while; the coffee table between Kunimi and the fireplace has equally dusty TV remotes on it and a thick book that looks like a photo album. He picks it up, setting it in his lap as it opens to the middle.

There’s two pictures of an old man and a young boy, probably the man and his grandfather like he was talking about. Then, four pictures of a bunch of trees like the ones Kunimi remembers seeing outside before they came into the house. The other two picture slots on the page are empty, so Kunimi turns back a page and sees eight pictures, some blurry, of a lake.

In one of them, a pale figure sits on what Kunimi knows is the lakeshore. 

He shuts the photo album, fits it back into its dust-free square on the table, and lays down on the couch. Kunimi slides his legs under the blankets and pulls the edge up to his chin, hands shaking where they grip it tightly.

Though he is human, he does not sleep.

Kunimi wishes, as the sun starts shining through the window, that he was not human in this dream. This is not a nice dream, he decides, because if he were unhuman he would not have been thinking about the man and his grandfather and his great-great-grandfather the whole night and how dangerously close the man is to finding Kunimi out.

His mind would’ve been blank and blissed out instead of panicking and full of too many thoughts, Kunimi thinks. But the sun is up now and there is nothing he can do about his ensuing sleepiness. He is not used to being tired, though he does sleep, sometimes, but the bone-deep weariness he feels right now is strange.

Kunimi walks into the kitchen to check the time because he can only read the digital clock on the stove. Seven-thirty A.M. He groans quietly, realizing he’d only been “asleep” for a little over five hours and there’s no chance the man is awake. Not with the night Kunimi put him through. So, he rustles through the fridge’s contents before coming up with a palmful of blackberries and a comically-small bottle of orange juice. He sits back down at the dining room table like he did last night to eat his scavenged breakfast, still better than anything he’d tasted before maybe besides the stir fry, and watches the sun come up through the window above the kitchen sink. 

To his great surprise, it’s not thirty minutes before the man walks in and startles at the sight of Kunimi sitting so casually in his kitchen. Both men stare at each other before the man gestures silently to the empty juice bottle. Kunimi shrugs.

The man huffs out a laugh. “I don’t mind, I just didn’t think you knew how a fridge worked.”

Kunimi barely smiles. He’s not surprised. “I took some blackberries, too.”

“Ooh, I don’t blame you.” The man opens the fridge and leans into it, staring. “They’re freshly grown by my friend who lives a few miles outside of town the other direction of me. I live on the south side and he lives on the north side. He grows strawberries, too, I think.”

Kunimi perks up. “That sounds nice.”

“It is!” The man shuts the fridge, the jug of milk and a handful of said strawberries in his hand. “Try some.” He sets the jug down and grabs a clean bowl from the dish drainer that he drops the strawberries into, sliding it towards Kunimi who has since stood and is now leaning on the edge of the counter. The man grabs a glass and pours himself some milk while Kunimi gingerly grabs a strawberry, holding the small leaves while he bites into the fleshy rest of it. It feels like a juice bomb goes off in his mouth and he barely holds back a groan at how good it tastes, the man chuckling quietly.

He grabs a smaller one for himself and plucks the leaves off in one go before he pops the whole thing in his mouth, chewing it a few times and shutting his eyes before he swallows. He blinks his eyes open and smiles at Kunimi. “You’ve got some juice on your chin, here,” he says, and then reaches a thumb out and swipes at the stray strawberry remains before Kunimi can say anything.

They both realize what just happened a second after the man pulls his thumb away, their faces as red as the strawberries sitting between them. Maybe redder.

“Sorry,” the man mumbles at the same time Kunimi quickly says, “My name’s Kunimi.”

He startles, and Kunimi wonders if he stopped breathing. Then, “Kageyama. My name is, I mean. Kageyama.”

Kunimi nods slightly, rolling his name around in his mind. _Kageyama. Kageyama._ “It’s nice.”

Kageyama furrows his brows, grabbing another strawberry. He plucks the leaves off one by one this time. “My name?”

“Yeah.” Kunimi takes another strawberry, too, nibbling at the pointed end. “Feels like I’ve heard it before.”

“Hmm.” Kageyama nods. “Maybe you really are that lake spirit my great-great-grandfather talked about.”

Kunimi pales, swallowing the bite of strawberry in his mouth harshly. “Really?”

Kageyama frowns. “I didn’t mean it, of course. It’s just a myth, probably.” He puts his strawberry leaves back in the bowl and gestures for Kunimi to take the last one. He does.

“Of course.” Kunimi takes a deep breath as Kageyama takes the dirty bowl to the sink where he rinses it beside the dishes from last night. “Wouldn’t it be funny if I actually were, though?”

The man at the sink laughs, grabbing a dish soap and sponge from under the sink. He stands back up, looking back at Kunimi. “Yeah, wouldn’t it? Here I am, practically insulting you and calling you a hoax.” He starts the hot water running, wincing when he puts his hand under the flow because it’s coming out too hot to touch.

Kunimi grins. Of course. This is just a dream, it’s just his dream-maker playing tricks on him and making him think that Kageyama knows who he is. There’s no way the guy’s ancestor is the one person Kunimi ever met in his real life.

But there’s been a strange weight on his shoulder this whole time, and he doesn’t know why.

Kunimi silently watches Kageyama wash the dishes, not speaking until he lays the last one on the drying rack. “So, what do you do, Kageyama?”

Kageyama sets the soaked towel in the sink, turning to Kunimi with a tired smile. “I’m an artist. I mainly make small works to sell at farmer’s markets, but I do some commissions online and from people in town. My parents, though,” he continues, “own a business a few towns over that has a branch here, so I work there a little bit, too. I’m just paying for the utilities on this house, basically, and groceries, so I don’t need to make a lot, anyway.”

Kunimi nods. “Must be nice.”

“It is, it is. I’m grateful, just a little lonely at times.” He pauses, reaching for the dry towel on the fridge’s handle to wipe his hands off on. “Your company has been nice,” he says quietly, barely loud enough for Kunimi to hear.

“I’m glad,” Kunimi says back, just as quietly, and Kageyama looks up with a small grin. 

“Come with me?” Kageyama suddenly asks, and how is Kunimi going to say no? So, he follows Kageyama back into the living room and then around a small corner where there’s a set of double doors leading outside. Kageyama pushes one door opens and gestures for Kunimi to step through onto what happens to be a porch. It’s big enough for a small deck table and two chairs, some hanging plants above them, too.

Kunimi’s eyes are sparkling, he thinks. “This is beautiful.”

Kageyama laughs quietly. “It is. Look out there.”

Kunimi’s eyes land immediately on the lake, because of course they do. He laughs. “Is that where you saw me from last night?”

“Yep.” Kageyama sighs, stepping up beside Kunimi on his right. “I saw you crawl out and ran through the living room and my whole house before you choked on lake water or something.” 

“No one made you do that.”

“I wasn’t going to let you die, idiot.” Kageyama stutters. “I mean, you’re not an idiot, I don’t know why I called you that-”

“It’s fine,” Kunimi says, shushing him. “Really.”

Kageyama pauses, cheeks red. He looks away, hair blowing in the wind. “You’re still weird to me, you know that? Even if you’re not a lake spirit.”

Kunimi hums. “Maybe.”

“See?” Kageyama turns back to him. “Who says that in response to getting called weird?”

“Me, apparently.”

“Huh.” He huffs. “You’re just laid-back, I guess.”

Kunimi pauses and sits at one of the chairs on the porch. Kageyama follows him and almost sits before he declares he’s going to get them both something to drink.

He walks back into the house and Kunimi sighs, admiring the view. He doesn’t know what his dream-maker is doing now, but he doesn’t mind it one bit. Kunimi lays a hand on the arm of his chair and sits up a little, looking over the porch railing. He eyes the lake once more before he stares at the forest, the dense trees making up the opening where he can see a small, well-worn path. He wonders, briefly, where it leads; maybe to a lake, like his own. Maybe this is the forest where Kageyama’s great-great-grandfather went mad over a strange spirit not totally unlike Kunimi. The lake spirit that is definitely not Kunimi. His chest tightens a little bit and he diverts his attention elsewhere, to the vast sea of grass he and Kageyama waded through last night. The moon watching them, Kunimi remembers, her gaze softened but intense. Knowing. He wonders if Kageyama would go out there with him again tonight, or if he would mind if Kunimi went out there on his own. If he would even want to come or bother with Kunimi at all.

Kageyama brings two strawberry lemonades out in glasses and sets them down quietly. He follows Kunimi’s gaze out to the field and nods. “That was really just last night, huh,” he says, taking his seat on the other side of Kunimi.

Kunimi whips his head around, then softens and chides himself for thinking it was anyone else. “You read my mind.”

“I figured it was wandering somewhere in that direction,” he says, taking a drink of his lemonade. “I’m going to be honest, I thought you would’ve left by now. But,” he continues, at Kunimi’s panicked interruption, “I don’t mind the company, as I said earlier.” Kageyama smiles, then, reassuring Kunimi just in the slightest.

Kunimi nods, taking a sip of his own drink. Kageyama looks back, then, at the rolling fields around his house, and Kunimi doesn’t know how he hasn’t noticed the man’s beauty until now. He admires, for a moment, the man’s build. How he’s clearly well-toned but not overly so, his jaw set confidently but not in a square-shaped way. It cascades neatly from his ears into his chin, and his eyes and eyebrows are forceful but have kindness beneath them, Kunimi can tell. The initially strange part of his black hair is endearing now, Kunimi thinks. Kageyama is wearing a simple white t-shirt with black sweatpants, but he looks casually put together. Like Kunimi’s dream-maker looked into his mind and made someone they knew he would like looking at.

Kageyama catches Kunimi staring at him not a second later, Kunimi looking away hastily even though he knows he’s been caught. Kageyama laughs quietly when Kunimi slowly turns his head back to him. “You’re not too sneaky, huh?”

“Guess not,” Kunimi mumbles, embarrassment creeping back upon him again. Embarrassment like last night’s embarrassment, but this is a little different, he thinks. Good embarrassment.

“I don’t mind,” Kageyama says coolly, looking back out at the view. “Promise.”

Kunimi’s heart is running at thirty miles per hour. Maybe one hundred.

Kageyama takes a drink, his adam’s apple bobbing. Kunimi stares at it and his chest bursts into a million tiny pieces. 

“Kunimi,” he says, looking back at him, and Kunimi stares at Kageyama. Stares and stares and stares. 

Deep breath. “Call me Akira,” he responds after a moment.

Kageyama grins, drinking the last of his lemonade. “Tobio, then.”

“Tobio,” Kunimi says, voice low. “Tobio.”

He relishes in the way Kageyama’s face reddens. 

Kunimi doesn’t know when he abandoned his lemonade or when he moved from his seat but it’s not five minutes from their intimate exchange of names when he finds himself on Kageyama’s lap, the mid-morning sun creeping over their bodies. 

He leans his head into the crook where Kageyama’s shoulder and neck meet on his left side, humming quietly as his forehead meets the skin there. Kageyama runs a soothing hand up and down, up and down Kunimi’s lower back, the other hand wrapped around and holding onto his waist. Kunimi’s hands are somewhere, he knows, holding onto some part of Kageyama’s shirt or body as he straddles him. He doesn’t think he’s had human contact like this in a long time, or ever, and Kunimi is going to relish in it while he has it. 

Kageyama brings his hand rubbing Kunimi’s back up to tangle in his hair, stroking softly. “You’re cute.”

Kunimi tenses. “Shut up.”

“You are!” He laughs, his chest rumbling against Kunimi. “I mean it.”

“Okay.” Kunimi shifts slightly. “I’ll believe you, I guess.”

Kageyama smiles. “Good. If you didn’t I’d just have to convince you somehow.”

“Mmm, maybe I change my mind, then. I don’t believe you anymore.” He leans back and looks at Kageyama. A challenge, Kunimi thinks. 

“Oh? Well,” Kageyama starts, amused, “for one, you were just holding onto me like a koala. Two, your hair is cute because I say it is.” He brushes a strand of it back into place, and Kunimi thinks he has ascended. “And, three,” Kageyama finishes, “I like how you look in my clothes.”

Kunimi doesn’t know how to respond, for a second, but Kageyama doesn’t let him because he brings his hand back up to Kunimi’s face and pushes the side of his bangs away, directing Kunimi to tilt his head down so he can kiss him softly on the forehead. And when he pulls away, face still concentrated on Kunimi, he kisses Kunimi on the nose, too. 

And here, Kunimi decides, is where he would be content to spend the rest of his life. 

Suddenly hot and still sitting up, Kunimi pulls up the edge of his - Kageyama’s - sweatshirt and takes it off over his head, leaving him still in his shirt. His hand meets Kageyama’s when he goes to fix his hair, and he lets Kageyama take over, smoothing his bangs and stray hairs back into place. Kunimi sets the sweatshirt on the deck table and goes to lean back into Kageyama, but he stops Kunimi with a gentle hand on his chest, pressing. His eyes are soft and wide, peering into Kunimi’s, and the hand on his chest moves to cup his jaw as Kageyama leans up just slightly where Kunimi leans down to meet him.

They kiss, sweetly and slowly and softly. Kageyama’s free hand moves to hold Kunimi’s waist, the single layer of fabric simultaneously thin and so, so stifling in the heat. Kunimi’s hands gravitate to Kageyama’s shoulders, gripping slightly as he turns his head and deepens the kiss. Kageyama groans quietly at that, catching Kunimi’s bottom lip between his teeth with a heavy breath when they break away for a moment. He stares at Kunimi as he loosens his bite, eyes hooded. 

Kunimi blinks slowly, then grins. “Someone’s eager.”

Time passes like molasses while they make out on the porch, stopping every so often to share drinks of Kunimi’s leftover watered-down-with-melted-ice lemonade. Kunimi eyes Kageyama’s hands every time he holds the glass, his grip firm but gentle. They’re artist’s hands, he thinks. One time, when Kageyama sets the glass back down on the table, Kunimi takes Kageyama’s condensation-damp hand and stares at it. He feels the callouses on the tips of his fingers and rubs them soothingly, Kageyama’s eyes slipping shut as his head falls back. 

Then, Kunimi kisses along each of Kageyama’s knuckles and only stops when he realizes Kageyama is saying something. “Hm, Tobio?” he mutters, looking up.

Kageyama smiles, eyes still shut. “It tickles, Akira. But,” he says, at Kunimi’s apology, “it’s cute. So keep doing it.”

Kunimi stills, an idea popping into his mind. “I could kiss you,” he says, planting a gentle kiss on the tender skin at the inner side of Kageyama’s wrist, “here. Or,” a kiss to the center of his palm, “here.” Kunimi shifts, letting go of Kageyama’s hand. He leans into Kageyama’s neck again, breath ghosting over the tender skin there. Kunimi kisses just under Kageyama’s ear. “Here.” He looks up, making heated eye contact for a moment, before he tugs at Kageyama’s shirt collar, kissing at the dip of his collarbone at the center of his chest. “Here.”

Kageyama breathes heavily from his nose. “Baby.”

“Here.” Kageyama’s chin. “Here.” His bottom lip. “Here.” His left cheek, right under the bag of his eye. Kunimi, again, makes eye contact. His eyes glint. “What did you call me?”

“Baby,” Kageyama replies immediately, his voice low. “Honey. Love. Can I call you what I want, Akira?”

Kunimi hums, leaning in. “You could never call me my name again and I’d be content.” He kisses Kageyama softly, for the hundredth time that day, and still, it feels like the first, he thinks.

Before either of them knows it, kiss drunk and sleepy, it’s evening. Kunimi’s head is on Kageyama’s chest, resting, and Kageyama gently wakes him up with a soft ruffle of his hair as the sun starts to go down. “Akira. Baby.”

Kunimi hums, barely looking up at Kageyama. “What? You’re comfy.”

Kageyama smiles. “I had an idea. What say we grab a blanket and dinner and go eat out by the lake, huh?” His hand is still carding through Kunimi’s hair.

“Sure.” Kunimi leans his head back into Kageyama’s chest, snuggling it with a push. “But you’re carrying me into the house.”

“Fine, princess,” Kageyama says, teasing but gentle. He eases his arms under Kunimi’s thighs and guides them around his waist before he tightens his grip under Kunimi’s ass and sits forward in the deck chair, adjusting him once before Kageyama stands and carries Kunimi inside. He takes him all the way to the kitchen, surprising Kunimi with his strength, before Kageyama sets him on the counter while he grabs a basket and food. Kunimi eyes his choices, seeing a plastic container of strawberries, a loaf of some kind of fluffy bread, some cheese, and a bottle of wine. 

“This is some dinner,” he says, and Kageyama laughs, turning from where he’s holding two glasses. 

“It’s romantic, okay?” He blushes, turning back to shut the cabinet door, and then he walks over to where the basket is beside Kunimi. “Cut me some slack.”

Kunimi hums, reaching a hand out to cup Kageyama’s jaw. He brings him forward and kisses him once, long and hard on the mouth, before he pulls away and smiles. “It’s very romantic, handsome. I love it, and I love you for doing this for us.”

“For you,” Kageyama corrects softly, face red. “You, baby.” He sets the glasses in the basket, flips the lid shut on it, and then tucks their blanket under his arm before he smiles at Kunimi again. “I can’t carry you all the way out there, but I would if I could.”

Kunimi blushes like an idiot, hopping off of the counter and following Kageyama down the garage stairs and into the night, walking the same path they walked the night before back to the lake. The grass, once again, swims around them, the moon watching like she always does. 

(What Kunimi does not know is that tonight she is laughing. She is kind, but laughing.)

It’s not ten minutes or so until they reach the lakeshore, the same wet grass growing beside it that Kunimi laid on when Kageyama found him. There are crickets buzzing around them, a breeze blowing, too, and Kunimi takes the blanket from Kageyama to spread out on the ground. Though, Kageyame ends up having to take the other side of it and weigh it down with the picnic basket, anyway; they sit down on the other side of it, facing the lake. Once Kageyama has poured them each a glass of wine and set the container of strawberries between them, teasingly poking his piece of bread at Kunimi’s nose, Kunimi leans into his side and hums.

Kageyama’s arm comes around Kunimi’s shoulders gently as he says, “I knew all along who you were. Are.”

“Oh?” Kunimi tries (and fails) to hide his surprise, speaking casually. “You didn’t mention it until now?”

“No,” he says, sipping his drink. “I mean, I had a hunch when I saw you crawl out of the lake but never heard you jump in. Once you flooded the bathroom, I knew you weren’t just human.”

Kunimi laughs softly. “I’m still sorry about that. Water spirits, uh… do strange things sometimes to emulate home.”

Kageyama huffs, but he smiles. “It’s not that bad, really.” He pauses. “And you knew my great-great-grandfather, apparently?”

“I guess, but I don’t really remember,” Kunimi admits. “But you remind me of him, so it was probably as you think. He’s the one human I’ve ever really encountered besides you. Others have sometimes wandered close to where I live, but none as close as him.”

“Do you miss him?”

Kunimi’s chest tightens imperceptibly. “A little. But not now. Not with you.”

Kageyama smiles, squeezing his hand where it cups Kunimi’s shoulder, “Good.”

Kunimi leans in a little further, tilts his head to kiss at Kageyama's neck, lips reddish with wine. “I’m really glad,” he says under his breath, “that you’re here now, Tobio.”

“Mmhmm,” Kageyama says, exhaling. “Me too, baby.”

Kunimi pulls away to take another drink, and he squints up at the sky. “What time is it?”

“Oh, maybe around 10:00?” Kageyama sloshes the little wine left in his glass and drinks it in one go. “It was probably around 9:00 when you woke up on the porch.”

“When _you_ woke me up, meanie,” Kunimi says. “I was comfy.” He finishes his drink, handing his glass to Kageyama to set them back in the basket. Kunimi picks up a strawberry, biting into it with a groan.

Kageyama grabs his own piece of fruit, picking the leaves patiently while he stares at Kunimi. “You’re not comfy right now?”

Kunimi defiantly lays down to set his head in Kageyama’s lap. “I am, but you still woke me up. I forgive you, though,” he says with a smile. 

“Good,” Kageyama says fondly, running his free hand through Kunimi’s hair. “I’d be very sad if you hated me.”

“I couldn’t hate you,” Kunimi says, voice soft. “I’m kind of in love with you, I think.”

He laughs a little. “Well, that’s okay,” Kageyama says, popping the last bite of his strawberry in his mouth. “I kind of love you, too.” He puts a hand under Kunimi’s head and then lays down beside him, letting Kunimi readjust and lay his head on Kageyama’s chest. He snuggles up against Kageyama’s side, Kunimi’s arm coming across his torso.

Kunimi hums. “You mean it?”

“Of course. It feels like I’ve known you for so long.”

“Really?” Kunimi’s voice raises a few notches in volume. “Me too.”

Kageyama laughs. “Weird.” He brings his arm back around to cup Kunimi’s shoulder with a squeeze. “Maybe we’re soulmates.”

“That’d be nice,” Kunimi slurs, slowly losing control of his voice either to sleepiness or the small amount of wine he had. Or both. “I love you, Tobio.”

Kageyama resumes playing with Kunimi’s hair. “Get some rest, baby.”

Kunimi falls asleep to Kageyama’s hand in his hair, eyes shut softly. It’s the best sleep he’s fallen into his whole life, he thinks. In his last thoughts, he hopes Kageyama sleeps well, too. He can’t wait to see him in the morning.

(Watching them, the moon laughs once more.)

Kunimi, back on the lakeshore of himself twenty-four hours after he fell asleep there, does not remember all the details of his dream. He does not remember his lover’s smile, or the strawberries, or the flooded bathroom. He does not remember kissing and kissing and kissing Kageyama. He does not remember the fine, but beautiful details he wishes he could.

He sobs into his lake, though, knowing he was loved.

**Author's Note:**

> some notes!  
> \- i have never written kunikage before, either as individual characters or as a pairing! i feel like this fic just came upon me very suddenly and strangely. please be kind  
> \- i listened to "water night" by eric whitacre on repeat for about the half the time i spent writing this. its text is adapted from some of octavio paz's writing, a section of it in the note at the beginning! [listen here!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ixP0NiGZnw)
> 
> overall, i just hope you enjoyed reading this! comments and kudos are appreciated, and i try to reply to them when i can. ty for reading! <3


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